Strawberries & Cream Profiteroles

Mari Vasseur

Bite sized choux pastry puffs filled with fresh strawberries and cream filling and topped with fresh strawberry icing

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Servings 18 profiteroles

12 ounces (340g) strawberries, hulled and sliced About 2 1/2 cups after hulling and slicing
1 teaspoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon strawberry extract

Purée the strawberries in a blender or food processor. Strain the puréed strawberries through a sieve into a small saucepan. Stir in the lemon juice.
Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer until the strawberry purée is reduced by half. Remove from heat. Stir in the strawberry extract. Set aside to cool completely

Bring the milk to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat.
Meanwhile, whisk the sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the egg and whisk until smooth.
When the milk starts to boil, remove from heat and pour 1/3 of the hot milk into the egg mixture and whisk to combine.
Pour the egg mixture back into the remaining hot milk and cook over medium heat, whisking continuously, until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens.
Remove from heat. Stir in the butter and vanilla extract. Pour the mixture through a sieve placed over a bowl. Cover the surface with plastic wrap and let cool completely.
Set aside 2 tablespoons (30ml) of strawberry purée. Add the remaining strawberry purée to the cooled pastry cream and stir until well combined. Cover strawberry pastry cream and chill in refrigerator.
In a medium-sized bowl, whip the heavy cream, with an electric mixer at high speed, until stiff peaks begin to form. Fold the whipped cream into cooled strawberry pastry cream. Set aside in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 400ºF (205ºC). Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Combine the water, butter and salt in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat. Add the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon until the mixture pulls away from sides of pan and forms a ball.
Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed until steam dissipates and mixture cools to lukewarm. Add the eggs one at a time and beat on medium speed until smooth, stopping to scrape down the bowl.
Transfer the mixture to a piping bag fitted with a large round tip. (I used Ateco tip 808.*) Pipe 1 1/4-inch mounds, about 2 inches apart, onto the prepared baking sheets. Smooth the tops lightly with a wet finger.
Bake for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven heat to 350ºF (180ºC) and continue baking until golden brown, about 8-10 more minutes. Using a toothpick or skewer, prick a small hole in each profiterole to allow steam to escape. Place on a wire rack to cool completely.
Use the tip of a paring knife to make a pilot hole in the bottom of each profiterole.
Place strawberries and cream filling into a piping bag fitted with a medium round piping tip. (I used Wilton tip 12**) Place the tip into the pilot holes and fill each profiterole with filling.

In a medium -sized bowl, whisk all of the icing ingredients together until smooth. Spoon over the filled profiteroles. Refrigerate profiteroles until ready to serve.

*To find Ateco tip 808 click here.

**To find Wilton tip 12 click here.

Keyword profiteroles, strawberry